Durable Health Care Power of Attorney

Your health and wellness are personal. While you want to ensure that you retain the ability to make health care decisions for yourself, that's not always the case. Unforeseen circumstances do arise, necessitating the ability for someone else to make quick decisions on your behalf.

A durable health care power of attorney ("POA") appoints someone else to make decisions on your behalf for times when you cannot do so for yourself. These decisions include course of treatment decisions, hiring and firing doctors, or, in the worst case scenario, deciding whether or not to withdraw care.

What's with the "durable" part?

Good question. Traditionally, powers of attorney ended when the principal (the person making the document) no longer had mental or physical capacity. That meant that their agent (the person acting on their behalf) had no ability to make decisions for them. Because that approach is stupid, Missouri allows for "durable" powers of attorney to ensure that the power granted to the agent extends to periods in which the principal is incapacitated. This provides ultimate protection for the principal and the agent.

When you create your durable health care POA with the help of The Taormina Firm, hospitals and health care providers are authorized to rely on the statements and course of treatment decisions made by your agent unless you tell them otherwise. Moreover, if you are married or in a domestic partnership, if you get divorced or split up, your spouse or partner's ability to act on your behalf terminates automatically, meaning that they will not longer have control over your health care needs.